Phantom 1.1.1 Falls from sky - Apparent battery failure?

I was flying along about 30 meters altitude and the motors suddenly sputtered and cut out. The bird fell fast and crashed into the only rock in the meadow. Luckily does not appear to be damage to the phantom or my sjcam. The aluminum camera mount actually bent though.

I was only in the air a few minutes with a fully charged battery and was expecting an 8 to 10 minute flight. I wasn't watching the battery level on the osd since it was early in the flight, so not sure if it tried to warn me. It took about 10 minutes to find the crash. The leds were out. I tried disconnecting the battery and reconnecting -- nothing. Tried a different battery back at the car and the phantom booted right up and got a gps lock. Seems ok.

The battery was a floureon 25C 2200mah and is dead as a doornail. Anyone else here had something like this happen? Search turned up a few incidents with the p2 proprietary batteries.

P1's don't fall out of the sky very often. The P2 on the other hand does.
I don't think our batteries are at all similar to the P2, besides being 3S and LiPo.
It sounds like the wires inside are broken, possibly burnt up prior to impact. It takes an effort to drop one of them to zero. I don't think you had time to do that.

That battery may be damaged to the point it may burn up, like catch fire.
Where is the battery now?

I bought one of those batteries and will NEVER buy another one again. Poorly made cheap battery with a big taste for disaster. There is something wrong with it. Some days I get 8 minutes, other days I get 4 minutes fully charged. I thought it was something I was doing wrong and could never figure it out, but I have since purchased other phantoms and the battery does the same thing. I only trust the multistar 4000 batteries that I have and use the stock batteries for testing and random flying. I would recommend not trusting those batteries.

strange suggestion but, could it be an unintentional shutdown command?
Sometimes when you press one of the shutdown commands into the remote, like both sticks 100% down for a second or two, it kills the engines instantly. Could this maybe be the thing that occured 30meters into the sky?

You are correct MissStabby, a CSC would shut the motors down instantly if you have selected that option in the NAZA assistant. I think someone would have to be doing aerobatics to get the sticks in that position though.

So, upandaway, have you taken a closer look at the battery yet? I'm curious as to what you may find.

In the Naza Assistant in the Motor Settings if you have the Motor Cut Off Type set to Immediate you can stop the motors Instantly in flight if you pull the throttle lever down to less than 10%.
Make sure to set this to Inteligent so it takes a few seconds to shut down the motors.That way if you pull the throttle lever down below 10% the Phantom will give you a warning by stuttering or wobbling in the air rather than just falling.

I have seen older batteries fail in flight but thay have not stopped powering the motors completely strait away but have caused a crash with sudden loss of power and self landing kicks in but it comes down very quickly.
Afterwards the battery still showed signs of life so what you describe sounds unusual and may be a fault in the battery.

I just had an apparent battery failure on my P1 over the weekend. I was using the Phantom brand battery that came with the P1. It started up and got GPS lock normally but as soon as it went up in the air the light turned red and the bird started sinking. I landed it okay, switched to another battery and it behaved normally. I assumed that I must have forgotten to charge that first battery since I hadn't flown it in a couple of months, but when I put it on the charger, it charged up within 15 minutes or so. I left it on the charger another half hour or so and the charger was still chowing a solid green, so I took it off. I have two more batteries, both or which behaved fine. I charged those as well. The next day the same thing happened. The first battery died as soon as the Phantom went airborne. The other behaved fine. I don't know if the first one is showing it to be charged when it really isn't or whether it is having trouble delivering the power to the Phantom. Obviously it's not a totally broken circuit since it will take off and behave normally on the charger.

Is there a way to rehabilitate shot batteries or this just hazardous waste now?

I just had an apparent battery failure on my P1 over the weekend. I was using the Phantom brand battery that came with the P1. It started up and got GPS lock normally but as soon as it went up in the air the light turned red and the bird started sinking. I landed it okay, switched to another battery and it behaved normally. I assumed that I must have forgotten to charge that first battery since I hadn't flown it in a couple of months, but when I put it on the charger, it charged up within 15 minutes or so. I left it on the charger another half hour or so and the charger was still chowing a solid green, so I took it off. I have two more batteries, both or which behaved fine. I charged those as well. The next day the same thing happened. The first battery died as soon as the Phantom went airborne. The other behaved fine. I don't know if the first one is showing it to be charged when it really isn't or whether it is having trouble delivering the power to the Phantom. Obviously it's not a totally broken circuit since it will take off and behave normally on the charger.

Is there a way to rehabilitate shot batteries or this just hazardous waste now?

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Have you tested the voltage of the battery?

There may be a poor connection at the XT60 (the yellow/orange plug) connector between the battery and the Phantom. The high current draw from the Phantom as it passes through a poor connection, will give you a low battery indication and cause the bird to descend and land as if it has reached the low voltage settings in the NAZA.
I have had a couple batteries which plugged in very easy. A pair of pliers and a little squeeze fixed them.

All it takes is one of the 3 cells to go duff and/or some of that good old Chinese workmanship on interconnects inside the pack/brick and you could suffer major failure.

Really handy tool - Junsi CellLog 8S/M. The 8S version can log cells during use for later viewing on computer and help reveal cells suffering from high IR (internal resistance) and poor C rate. Good field meter IMO.

I recently replaced some older P1 batteries using Turnigy 2.2Ah 45-90C nano-tech. They’re 1oz heavier and slightly fatter so it’s a tighter squeeze but once past the XT60 they fit fine. I ran ‘em a good 10 minutes (verified on GoPro video) and the Phantom was still not complaining about voltage sag. Probably another minute or two remaining.

Do yourselves a favor - goto youtube and search RC Lipo IR testing. Very useful technique for qualifying battery packs and cells on the ground before you find out 100’ off the surface.

I try to store RC Lipo in an area where I can build a fire. Old ovens, BBQ grills, metal tool boxes, etc. But if you know and understand the cells, IR, C rates, etc., you can mostly prevent any fireballs.

It shouldn’t take much effort to envision how to gather the same data for individual cells. Particularly with a meter like the CellLog which reads individual cell voltages.

If/when you get your head around IR testing you’ll discover opportunities to construct test loads. I started with light bulbs but eventually moved on to old heater elements, toaster ovens, space heaters, etc.

As with anything RC related - getting a handle on connectors and wire can help your journey immensely.

There may be a poor connection at the XT60 (the yellow/orange plug) connector between the battery and the Phantom. The high current draw from the Phantom as it passes through a poor connection, will give you a low battery indication and cause the bird to descend and land as if it has reached the low voltage settings in the NAZA.
I have had a couple batteries which plugged in very easy. A pair of pliers and a little squeeze fixed them.

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I don't have a voltage tester, but the plug did go in very easily this time. It used to go in with much more difficulty. I'll try the pliers next time. Thanks for the tip.